


The Walker in the Woods

by Latras



Series: The On Ice Anthology [3]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Body Horror, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:00:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27283066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Latras/pseuds/Latras
Summary: This is a Halloween special for the story 'On Ice'
Series: The On Ice Anthology [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199765
Comments: 8
Kudos: 4
Collections: The Story of Milo and Rosa





	The Walker in the Woods

This story starts during chapter 21, and diverges from canon.

The Walker in the Woods  
Halloween Special

The sun was lowering on the horizon, and Milo knew it was almost time to head back. The pair had been hiking for a while now, and their camp was at least an hour away, at least at the speed they were making.

“It’s getting late, we should get back to camp.”

“Agreed, let’s go.”

Milo pulled out his map and compass, and he plotted a course back to the hill they’d parked on. The walk would take them through a dense patch of woods. What leaves were left on the trees were different colors of orange, red, and vibrant green. The evening light was barely able to shine through the foliage as the trees were only meters away from each other. Milo could hear the slight wind rustling the underbrush. 

As they walked, Milo grew uneasy. It took him a few minutes to realize what was giving him a foreboding feeling, though. It was a coppery smell.

“Do you smell blood?” He asked. Rosa stopped, and sniffed at the air.

“Faintly. I smelt it this morning when you were making breakfast, but I just brushed it off.”

“Hmm.”

Milo increased his pace. The sun was now almost touching the treetops, and he could see the woods darkening. The night wouldn’t be a problem for him, but he was worried about Rosa. She increased her speed to follow him.

Milo halted twenty minutes later to check his map. They were deep in the grove of trees, and were also about halfway back to camp. The blood smell had somewhat dissipated, and Milo took that to mean that they had moved away from whatever was making the smell. His assurance lasted a few seconds more, before the blood odor came back, this time with a tinge of rot and decomposition. He covered his nose, and he saw his girlfriend do the same.

“What the fuck is that?” He asked. Rosa shook her head and continued walking. Milo, although uneasy, took the smell to mean that something big had died and was rotting in the woods near them. Even though something like that would be disquieting, it was still completely natural. They pressed onwards.

When they exited the trees, the smell lessened somewhat. Looking back into the dense underbrush, Milo could’ve sworn he had seen a fern move. Shaking it off, he started up the hill. He stopped when he realized Rosa wasn’t following. He turned to see her staring back at the bushes. 

“What are you-”

She turned halfway towards him, not taking her eyes off of the foliage. She put a hoof to her lips. He followed her gaze to the fern that he had seen move before. It was still moving, but this time, there was blood adorning its leaves. As he watched, a drop of the thick red liquid fell down onto the leaf-strewn autumn ground.

“Oh.”

As soon as whatever was in the bushes heard him, it ran away. He could hear bushes and branches rustling as it moved further from them. A sense of foreboding washed over him, making his blood run icy. He strained and squinted his eyes, but all he could see was the wind moving the bushes. Rosa turned to him.

“That’s good, right?”

“What.”

“It ran away. It obviously doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

Milo considered that. The thing had behaved like a forest predator. It had trailed them for hours through the woods, and once they had exited, it realized it had no advantage in the open and had retreated. Whatever it was, it was smart. This terrified Milo even more, but he saw no reason to include Rosa in the fear.

“Y-yeah, i guess. Let’s just get back to the camper.”

The trek up the hill went by significantly faster than the previous night, and the moon was only just starting to come up over the horizon as they entered their clearing. Rosa couldn’t see the state their camp was in the dark, but Milo could. And he gasped. Their folding chairs were ripped to shreds, along with the table they had brought being folded in half. There was a single deep slash through each of their tires, and the motorcycle had been almost ripped apart by something. They were stuck, alone, and in the woods with something that obviously didn’t like them at all. Milo’s knees went weak, and he would’ve fallen to the ground if Rosa hadn’t caught him. She hadn’t seen the camp in the dark yet, and she hadn’t pieced together the thing in the woods’ actions. Milo stood back up, and pulled up his phone flashlight. 

Rosa gasped, putting a hoof over her mouth. She glanced over the carnage, and Milo saw what had been done to the trees surrounding them. Long gouges were cut through the bark, each tree having some sort of damage done to it. Branches were broken, leaves were stripped, and a few of the smaller saplings were even uprooted. Bark and heartwood alike was strewn through the clearing in curly spirals formed when they had been gouged out of the trees by long claws.

They had definitely fucked up.

“What the-”

Milo couldn’t finish his sentence before his ears pricked up instinctually, hearing a voice deep in the woods. It sounded like a male, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Should we leave?”

He turned back to Rosa, who was swinging a flashlight to and fro from the trees to the camper with a worried expression on her muzzle. Milo considered their options.

“Maybe, but our tires are slashed. Might not be much of a problem on the grass and leaves, but it’ll fuck up the rims on that paved road in and out of the park. We shouldn’t get going until we’re absolutely sure that whatever it is wants to kill us.”

His girlfriend nodded, looking back at the truck.

“Well, what should we do tonight?”

Milo walked to the side door of the camper. Thankfully, the thing in the woods hadn’t broken off the handle or lock, so they could have at least a modicum of safety that night, if they decided to stay, which he was still on the fence about. His heart told him that staying would be the worst decision he’d ever made, but his brain told him that driving at night in the middle of nowhere was still dangerous, multiplied tenfold by the completely flat tires on the camper. The motorcycle was out of the question as well.

“We’re gonna have to stay. The door still locks, so we can probably sleep in the camper tonight, probably in shifts.” 

They piled back onto the camper for a night of restless sleep.

“I’ll take the first shift.” Milo said. Rosa nodded and climbed up into the bed. Once he was sure she was settled in, he sat down at the miniature coffee table, his gaze alternating in between the door, the rear window, and the kitchenette window. Due to his night vision, he could see pretty clearly out of the rear and door windows, but the window facing the forest was unusually dark. He couldn't see more than a few feet out of it. He chalked it up to the moon shining down on the other side of the truck, and the proximity of the dense trees to that side. He began to relax. The day had been exhausting, from the nightmarish hike through the woods to the run up the hill, Milo’s energy was all but gone. He soon found himself drifting off into the veil of sleep.

Two or so hours later, Milo was awoken by the same voice he had heard in the distance. It was closer now, much closer, and he could now tell it was male. He shot up in his chair, eyes straining to pick up the faint traces of movement that he had just seen in the woods. It seemed like it was back. 

Milo rapidly glanced around for anything that could be used as a weapon. He had a switchblade that he had been carrying ever since the incident that had left him hospitalized, and he had a mahogany hiking stick that could probably deliver a mean thwack to any offending creature. Despite this, he still felt underprepared for whatever was out there. Gripping his knife tightly, he glanced back outside. The thing had left, or was at least standing perfectly still, because he couldn’t detect any movement. He debated the pros and cons of leaving the protective metal shell of the camper. If he did, whatever serial killer/ancient forest demon/feral mammal was trying to kill him would have a prime opportunity, but staying inside wasn’t all that inviting either. Whatever it was could probably rip right through the one inch thick aluminum body and tear his throat out.

He heard a branch crack from the only direction he couldn’t see, the front. Then he heard another, then another. It was circling the truck. When he chanced a look outside, he caught a glimpse of something strange. It looked like a mountain lion, decked out in park ranger apparel, but it moved all wrong. There was something about its gait that suggested it wasn’t used to walking, like a toddler. It stumbled around into the moonlight, and he could see the light glint off of the cougar’s badge.

Milo’s fear instantly converted itself to anger. If it were just any mammal doing this to him, he still would’ve been pissed, but at least it would be understandable as a pretty in-depth prank. But this was a park ranger, someone who was employed by the government to keep people in the forest safe. And here he was, scaring the shit out of him and his girlfriend in the middle of the night. Milo put down his switchblade and gripped his hiking stick, intending to go out and give the cat a piece of his mind. Before he did so, he stopped to shake Rosa awake.

“Hmmm?”

“I see the fucker that’s been doing this to us. I’m gonna go outside and tell him to piss off.”

Rosa sat up and looked outside to the mountain lion who was now poking through the fire pit. She seemed to have the same reaction as Milo, and her eyebrows furrowed.

“I’m coming out there too.”

Milo opened the door, and swung it open so that it hit the side of the truck with a loud bang. The big cat looked unperturbed by the noise, and looked up almost lazily at the couple. Milo stepped down to the grass and approached him.

“Hey! Fuckwad! What in fuck’s name are you doing?!”

The cat didn’t even blink as Milo shouted, just continued to look at him, which only served to enrage the coyote further.

“I asked you a question, shithead!”

The cougar stood up. Milo hadn’t noticed it before, but he was slouching. As the cat stretched out, Milo’s blood froze. Something was wrong, very wrong. He just kept standing up, and up, and up. Pretty soon, he towered over Milo by at least a meter, and even Rosa was feeling intimidated by the massive feline. There was something else about him, and it took the couple a second to realize what.

The cat’s arms were long, too long to be any sort of natural. They had presumably been folded up in the cat’s chest, but now they were allowed to dangle freely as it stood up. This was not a mountain lion, and Milo wasn’t even sure it was a mammal at this point. Then, the thing unhinged its elongated jaw and spoke in a deep and almost mechanical voice, as if it was repeating something it had heard before.

“Y-y-you not allowed. I-I-I warned you.”

As it spoke, its arms stretched towards the fear-frozen canine. Milo couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe. He watched the clawed limbs slowly wrap around him. He was beginning to make peace with death as an explosion cracked through the trees and something small and fast hit the thing. It shrieked an ear-splitting screech, clutching a now bleeding hole in its leg. Milo stumbled backwards, out of its reach, and turned to look at where the loud bang had come from. 

Before he could turn all the way around, he heard the recognizable click-clack of a pump shotgun and another round sailed past him and into the creature, this time impacting it in the center of its chest. It screamed again, and Milo finally was able to turn to look at his saviour.

It was another mountain lion, almost identical to the creature except for the arms and legs. He was wearing the same park ranger uniform, and sure enough, he was clutching a shotgun. The big cat chambered another round, and this time aimed for the thing’s head. The shot impacted, and it finally fell down. Milo turned to look back at it, but to his disbelief, it was still moving. The twelve gauge slug had hit its target, but all that was left of it on the creature’s face was a bloody impact mark. 

“Y’ALL BETTER GIT IN THE DAMN TRUCK ‘FORE IT GETS BACK UP!”

Heeding the ranger’s words, Milo and Rosa ran to the cougar’s vehicle, a parks department SUV sitting at the bottom of the hill. Milo opened the back door and they almost flew into the backseat. He heard three more gunshots ring out into the night, and then silence. He was about to go back up the hill before he saw the ranger booking it down the slope, shotgun in paw. Before he could say anything, the big cat wrenched open the driver’s side door, slid into his seat, and stomped on the gas pedal. The SUV lurched forwards and then to the left as its driver turned the wheel to escape the thing. The engine roared as they accelerated off down a gravel road.

“What in the fucked-up world was that thing? And why does it look like your demonic twin brother?”

The ranger turned his head towards Milo slightly, not taking his eyes off the road.

“I’ll tell ya later. Right now, we need to get the fuck outta here.”

Rosa spoke from the seat next to Milo’s.

“Thanks for the rescue, Mr.-”

“Hall, Gus Hall. You’re welcome.”

Milo turned his gaze to the window. From the speed the trees were passing by, they were going at least one hundred and ten kph. He felt better, knowing that they were in a solid metal bullet on its way towards safety. His hopes were immediately dashed as he very faintly saw a figure running alongside the road, keeping pace with the speeding car. He almost couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Fuck, FUCK.”

Gus glanced out of the window, and almost lost control of the SUV. He turned his attention back to the now paved road, and accelerated. Milo could hear the engine strain as Gus bumped up the speed. One-twenty, one-thirty, one-forty, and the car finally topped out at one hundred and fifty kph. The creature was still keeping pace, and it was moving to intercept the car. It ran out from the bushes on the side of the road, and Milo could now fully see it in the moonlight. He nearly shit his pants. Looking back at him was his own face, contorted into an evil grin. He looked longer, and he saw that the thing had the same fur coloration and body as him. He screamed. As soon as he did, it overtook the SUV, and ran across the road and into the opposite side. Gus cursed as it ran in front of the car, and he swerved to avoid it, almost running himself off the road. The cougar looked back at Milo.

“Can you shoot?”

“Like a gun?”

“Yeah.”

“I can.”

Gus reached over and popped open the glovebox, extracting a small revolver from it. In the big cat’s paws, it would’ve been almost comically undersized, but it fit perfectly into Milo’s. 

“This won’t have the same type of effect that a twelve gauge does, but it’ll slow it down.”

Milo nodded and set the gun down on his lap. He had been to a gun range several times and knew all the basics.

Another minute passed without incident, and without Gus taking his foot off the gas. Then, it happened. Milo, now looking out of the windshield, saw the thing stand in the middle of the road. Instead of swerving or braking like he had done before, Gus kept his foot down and plowed right into the thing. Milo and Rosa could hear its bones crack and snap as the SUV hit it, and it flew over the hood, onto the roof, and fell onto the road behind them. Looking back through the trunk window, they could see it rising, seeming unconcerned with its broken limbs. It flashed another evil grin, and slunk off into the woods yet again.

They came flying out into the welcome area parking lot, and the SUV stopped in a cloud of rubber smoke. Everyone unbuckled and opened their doors, intending to make a mad dash to the camp store. They didn’t get the chance.

Milo, Rosa, and Gus all started sprinting towards the building. Looking back, Milo could see the bull bar mounted on the SUV bent into the grill from the force of the impact. He took his eyes off it just in time to see something move in the shadows to his left. He looked closer, and he saw it. It was back to looking like Gus, and it was making a beeline to him.

“GUS! TO THE LEFT!”

The big cat turned, but much too slowly to avoid the creature bearing down on him. It slammed into his side, and he went down screaming, dropping his shotgun as he fell. His scream seemed to carry on for minutes.

“AAAAAAAAAAGhuk…”

His scream abruptly stopped and turned into a wet gurgle as the creature ripped his throat out. Milo just stood there, frozen like he was up on the hill. The shock of seeing the big cat being killed by a nightmare version of himself was just too much to process. Rosa was quicker on the draw. She dove to the ground where the shotgun lay. Picking it up, she leveled it at the creature and yanked the trigger. She had never handled a firearm before, much less one meant for mammals with paws instead of hooves, but she had seen enough action movies to know how to shoot a gun.

The slug hit the thing in its left arm, and it shrieked and turned its attention from the dead mountain lion to the deer. Milo, realizing that he was still carrying the revolver that Gus had given him, raised it and fired four rounds. The screaming and gunshots brought Roy out of the head ranger’s station a few dozen meters away. Upon seeing the creature, its assailants, and Gus’s still bleeding corpse, he bellowed and unslung a rifle from his back. Charging forward, the buffalo swung his weapon like a club and nearly took the head off of the creature from the force of his hit. The creature, seemingly having had enough, retreated back into the forest. Roy glanced down at the corpse of one of his rangers, and then up at the couple.

“You two alright?”

They shakily nodded. Milo was about to speak before a shriek from the forest drowned out all other noise. It was accompanied seconds later by another, then another, all at different distances and different directions. Roy’s eyes widened and he shouted over the cacophony.

“RUN!”

Milo and Rosa ran towards the camp store, with the old ranger following them. They made it inside and started shoving whatever they could in front of the door. Milo wasn’t sure it would keep those things out, but it would at least slow them down. He walked up to Roy, who was peering out of the window overlooking the dimly lit parking lot.

“What. The fuck. Was that?”

Roy turned his attention to the smaller mammal.

“These woods aren’t ours. At least, not during the night. Right now I need you to go over to that phone in the corner and call the cops. There should be a highway patrol car or two in the area.”

Milo nodded and found the landline phone the buffalo had directed him to. He’d just have to get a proper explanation later. He dialed 911, but all he got was a static noise. He tried again and got the same result. Glancing outside, he saw what the problem was.

An entire telephone pole had been ripped out of the ground. It lay there on its side, and the wires connecting it to the adjacent poles were severed. He pulled out his cell, and dialed 911 again. He got a similar static noise to that of the landline. He walked over to tell Roy the bad news, but he seemed to already have known what the outcome would be.

“So, what now?”

“We wait until daybreak, then book it out of here.”

They sat in the shop for hours, each mammal looking out of a window. Milo would often catch glimpses of things in the treeline, but it was becoming harder for him to see them moving around. Their actions were making no sense. There was no reason to them, almost as if they were just meandering around the woods.

“Milo?”

Milo nearly jumped out of his seat as he heard Rosa’s voice coming from outside. How had she gotten out of the door without moving the barricade? And why weren’t the creatures attacking her.

“Milo? Please let me in! These things are all around me! I’m scared!”

He was about to go and remove the junk blocking the door to let her in when a hoof softly tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and saw Rosa next to him, inside the building. He heard the voice outside again.

“Milo! Please! They’re going to kill me!”

Rosa looked at him, her mouth not moving at all while the voice called out for help. She was beginning to silently cry, terrified by the sound of her panicked voice. Milo wrapped his arms around her, pulling the doe into a protective hug. The voice outside changed. It was now Gus’s voice.

“Boss? Boss! Let me in! I’m hurt, but I’m still alive! Please!”

Roy looked outside and almost had a heart attack. He gestured to the parking lot, and the couple broke off their hug to go and look out of the window.

“No… No no no no no..” Milo whispered under his breath.

Gus, or at least what looked like Gus, was standing under a beam of light from the shop’s floodlights. It looked exactly like him, all the way down to the shredded hole in his throat. The worst part was that the cougar’s corpse was still visible on the edge of the light, a pool of blood already surrounding it. Roy was speechless.

“Boss? I see you in there! Let me in! They’re still out here!”

In response, the buffalo raised his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the thing that looked like Gus’s head. It grinned like a madmammal and shuffled off into the woods, out of sight. When it was completely out of sight, Roy breathed a sigh or relief. Milo and Rosa went back to their seats. The minutes passed without incident, and nobody could see anything moving in the treeline. Milo thought that he had seen something rustling leaves, but he soon realized that it was the wind.

Then, a thump resonated through the small shop. All of the mammals in the building turned their attention to the hallway leading to the storage closet and Roy screamed.

“SHIT! THE BACK DOOR!”

He rushed into the back of the shop, but it was too late. The door busted open and they were confronted with something terrifying. Something that shouldn’t have existed. Surely, if there was any kind of higher power, they would’ve done away with this long ago.

What stood in the hallway, almost scraping the ceiling, was an amalgamation of the mammals in the store. The horns of a buffalo, the spots of a deer, and the pointed muzzle of a coyote were all mashed together in an unholy union of flesh. Milo had seen hybrid concepts before, but this thing was on a different spectrum than folfs and ligers. It was fundamentally wrong. Its flesh writhed and squirmed as it took on new shapes and features. It was alternating between all of their faces, each iteration grinning a sadistic grin. Milo could feel heat radiating off of it, and the stench of blood and rot was almost unbearable. He could see the bones of the thing popping and molding as it grew new limbs and retracted old ones. Something told him in the back of his mind that they were done for. This thing wouldn’t let them see it like this unless it was sure it could silence them.

He screamed, and it lunged.

-END-


End file.
